


Across the Shale

by anomieow



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Explicit Consent, First Time, Fluff, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:36:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24412174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomieow/pseuds/anomieow
Summary: “Would you like a bit of chocolate, Mr. Collins?” he blurts. Is it awkward to offer something? Or is it expected? “I’ve no tea,” he continues. “No way of making any, or I’d offer that—”Do shut up,he advises himself, aware he’s speaking too low to be understood clearly, but he couldn’t raise his voice if he tried. His hands shake as he tries to unwrap the bar of dark chocolate for which he’d traded away two days’ worth of tinned rations, which make him queasy anyway.Mr. Collins reaches over and lays his hand on Goodsir’s. “First, I didn’t come expecting tea. But I’d love a bit of that chocolate if it won’t put you out.” Goodsir studies his mouth as he speaks, the way his neatly made upper lip curls just barely up and out over his lower. A neat balance of the sensual and the spare in that mouth.Watch it, now, don’t excite yourself.“And… you ought to call me Henry.” With a callused thumb, he strokes the edge of Goodsir’s hand, the metacarpal ridge of the thumb down to the wrist. “And I can call you Harry, I hope?”
Relationships: Henry Collins/Harry D. S. Goodsir
Comments: 8
Kudos: 52





	Across the Shale

**Author's Note:**

> A note: Yes, I’m coding Goodsir slightly as autistic, though not overtly enough to tag it. I did this after reading Fitzjames’ description of the historical Goodsir as walking on his toes, tenuous evidence but enough for a neurodivergent writer to whom it just feels like a natural idea to pursue. Also, this is fluff. Explicit smutty fluff, but fluff.

Goodsir can hear Mr. Collins coming from a ways off, his boots crunching heavily on the shale, and sets to looking busy. He considers his microscope, a compound lens behemoth still tucked away in its crate, but setting it up and convincingly feigning competent use of is is a more complicated rigmarole than he can manage just now, half-frozen and bone-tired as he is. He settles for putting on his glasses and resuming his reading. Then, after a moment, he rises again, and peers out through the narrow gap in the tent flap. Mr. Collins walks with his back straight, despite the cold, looking about himself. He cuts an imposing figure in even such a vast landscape, though that is only perhaps because Goodsir himself feels—no, certainly not _imposed upon_ by the man, not in the least. Quite the opposite, in fact. He welcomes any attention, no matter how slight, from the second mate. It is only that the diminutive naturalist’s sense of being loomed-over, hemmed-in, by the tall, coarsely built Collins reaches him even across this distance and awakens in him a kind of giddiness and wonder.

He returns to Linnaeus. He has been wrestling with the thorny, humbling matter of naming species. Before the expedition, identifying an unfamiliar specimen had been a matter of mere research. Now he has pulled up in nets aquatic fauna unnamed by civilized man, crabs with brindled shells and translucent blue prawn the size of a child’s thumb; he has seen porpoises on the horizon that he can’t recall having seen in any of his books. In the sky arc birds at once familiar and unfamiliar, their wing shapes and manner of flight like better-known pelagic species but here on the coast of the world’s crown they’re larger; against the pewter sky they gleam a wraithlike white wingtip to bill-point. Is he now responsible for naming these things? Dare he? How?

Not that it matters. He can’t concentrate on his reading, for Mr. Collins is within a few paces of his tent, his brand-new private field station. His guest pauses and Goodsir’s heart thrashes at the back of his mouth. What if he doesn’t wish to be here? What if he was only being practicing politeness when he expressed interest in Goodsir’s rock specimens, and assented to his sudden and awkward invitation—muttered in such a low voice that he’d had to repeat himself twice—out of mere panic? One does not wish to be impolite, Goodsir knows—it is like people to accept any invitation they cannot immediately bluff their way out of. That may well be the case here. _Well, if he doesn’t wish to stay,_ Goodsir resolves unhappily, _we won’t detain him._

But Mr. Collins seems very glad to be there, clapping Goodsir stoutly on the shoulder as he enters.

“It’s rather close, I’m afraid,” Goodsir stammers, offering Mr. Collins his one chair, which he takes, and still has to lean forward, elbows on his knees, so as not to graze the canvas ceiling with his head. Goodsir himself leans against his narrow table, arms elbows locked, trying to look at home.

“I like it,” Mr. Collins answers brightly. “You’ve a bit more privacy here, yes? That must be nice.”

“It’s quite… quiet, yes.” He has thought of little else but the man before him for days but finds himself now at a loss for words. “Would you like a bit of chocolate, Mr. Collins?” he blurts. Is it awkward to offer something? Or is it expected? “I’ve no tea,” he continues. “No way of making any, or I’d offer that—” _Do shut up,_ he advises himself, aware he’s speaking too low to be understood clearly, but he couldn’t raise his voice if he tried. His hands shake as he tries to unwrap the bar of dark chocolate for which he’d traded away two days’ worth of tinned rations, which make him queasy anyway.

Mr. Collins reaches over and lays his hand on Goodsir’s. “First, I didn’t come expecting tea. But I’d love a bit of that chocolate if it won’t put you out.” Goodsir studies his mouth as he speaks, the way his neatly made upper lip curls just barely up and out over his lower. A neat balance of the sensual and the spare in that mouth. _Watch it, now, don’t excite yourself._ “And… you ought to call me Henry.” With a callused thumb, he strokes the edge of Goodsir’s hand, the metacarpal ridge of the thumb down to the wrist. “And I can call you Harry, I hope?”

Goodsir can only nod as he realizes that somehow the meaning of his invitation, the unarticulated hopes beneath its pretense— _I’ve found some most fascinating samples of sedimentary shale, striations of what appear to be—_ have not only been transmitted successfully to Collins, but are returned in kind. He snaps the chocolate bar in two and hands half to Collins, who bites off a corner with his canine. Goodsir breaks his own portion into four smaller parts, roughly equivalent in size, and slips one into his mouth. He turns it on his tongue, agitating it against the roof of his mouth just enough to coax it to melt. Chocolate is a nice thing, he thinks distractedly. Subtle stimulant properties, and it is difficult to feel unhappy when one is tasting it. He thinks of telling Collins everything he knows about chocolate, how it was discovered first in the court of Montezuma as a thick, bitter drink—but he is suddenly embarrassed by this surplus of knowledge he carries with him. He doesn’t wish to bore. So he is silent. But then something else just as concerning occurs to him.

“Should we be talking?” he asks uneasily.

Collins shakes his head. “Like you said, it’s quite here. ‘s nice, actually.” His eyes widen. “Not that I don’t love when you talk! I could listen to you talk about—whatever. You know so many things. But I often feel, somehow, on the ships—someone must always be talking. You know what I mean.” But it’s clear by Goodsir’s face that he does not, in fact, know what Collins means. Collins feels himself blush, though his stubble and muttonchops absorb it. He gazes into Goodsir’s hazel eyes, which are widened slightly, expectantly. Ringed in short, thick lashes. He feels the warmth in his cheeks climb.

At first, he’d thought the assistant surgeon was a hopeless innocent and had suffered no small amount of guilt over the decidedly profane thoughts he inspired. But he’d overheard him serve Dr. Stanley’s acerbic wit back to him without missing a beat, and sidestep each attempt that slick caulker’s mate had made to get to know him better. And his knowledge of basically everything was encyclopedic. Surely no man so sharp of mind was innocent in matters of the body? Still, Collins’ own preference in this area—that is, the company of other men—was not the standard one. He’d welcomed any opportunity for Goodsir’s company because he enjoyed it—how animated he became when passionate, his eyes gleaming and brow lifted; the gentle but immense depths of his heart, demonstrated by how, though he recognized nature’s necessary brutality, witnessing predation still pained him; the razor wit that sometimes pricked through his otherwise earnest bearing. Collins stopped short of actively seeking his company out, only because he did not wish to impose what he himself wished for. Of his personal life, Goodsir never spoke. So Collins took pleasure in his presence, expecting nothing—but nurturing, against his own will, the dimmest of hopes. Then, two days prior, after several weeks of increasingly anxious behavior, Goodsir had invited him—his eyes downcast, voice low and monotonous, hands trembling—to visit him in his new field station tent.

Now here he sits, still perfectly capable of screwing it all up. “I only mean—people don’t like silence, have you noticed? They don’t. If you don’t talk, they do. But just now neither of us was talking and it felt… perfect, somehow. Didn’t it?” He returns his hand to what feels like a natural place atop Goodsir’s.

“Do you mean to say that you’re not particularly enthusiastic to hear a lecture on sedimentary shale?” An almost imperceptible twitch at the edge of his mouth—soft, full lips—reveal that he is teasing.

Collins feels himself smile. “Perhaps you can tell me about the rocks after,” he says.

“After?” Goodsir knits his brow in faux perplexity.

“I want to kiss you, Harry.”

“I should be very glad, Henry, if you did.”

Collins’ lips are soft and his skin is rough; the contrast between the two is wonderful. Goodsir’s hardly kissed anyone before, and never in this way. It’s not a kiss goodnight, not a tepid reciprocation of something initiated by another. A distant voice in his head tries to warn him he’s doing it wrong, that his breath is bad and his tongue is too big or too small, and it’s true that he doesn’t know what to do with his hands—at first they’re stiffly at his side, fingers splayed, but one makes its way to tangle in Collins’ thick hair and the other ends up around his waist, pulling himself closer, until he can feel the other man’s hardened length against him, so he can’t be doing that badly. And anyway, it _feels_ exactly right; from his unruly curls to the tips of his toes every molecule of his body except that stupid voice in his head trembles in agreement and finally drowns out the doubt.

Collins maneuvers him onto his knee, then his mouth is moving down, his tongue flicking against the curve of Goodsir’s Adam’s apple, the curve of his throat; his warm lips mouthing softly, wetly, at his tender flesh. When his teeth graze his clavicle, he feels it in his prick, which is already hard and exquisitely sensitive. “Oh,” he breathes, his voice small and tremulous, “oh...” His fist opens and closes in Collins’ hair, a gentle urging-on, and his entire body is pliant and eager against his. It is like holding a beating heart in his hands. He unbuttons Goodsir’s collar to explore the flesh there and swears he can feel the other man’s pulse against his lips. He presses his ear to his heart: it’s hammering. He wants to touch him all over, see and taste each plane and shadow. But it’s cold in the tent, and there is only so much time before his absence might be noticed.

He lifts his eyes to Goodsir’s face. “I must put to you a blunt question,” he says. 

“By all means.” His voice is soft and low and dreamy as he stares off into the shadowy corners of the tent. Collins has never heard him like this before, and it thrills him in this soft, giddy way. Like he has been given a gift. 

“Have you ever—I mean, how far have you been, with a man—“

Goodsir finally looks at him. “A young lady,” he says, smiling quietly, “kissed me once. I did not care for it.”

“But it’s all right, this?”

“All right? I should say so. More than. It’s...” he closes his eyes and waves his hand vaguely. “I’ve not the words.” 

“I’d like to—give you more. If you’d allow it. I’d like to... funny, I never imagined being shy about it, if the time came—“

“But you did imagine it.”

“Yes. Christ, yes. I like you very much, Harry. I do, I swear it—some days it drives me near mad.”

Goodsir is silent for a moment, perplexed. “Mad? Truly?” He sounds genuinely astonished. “I’m sorry for that. You need only have asked.”

“All this time?”

“All this time.”

“Harry, I—I would like to... you will not allow me to press you into anything? You will say something if I impose myself, if—“

“I’m not made of glass, Mr. Collins.” This is accompanied by a stroke of his thumbnail down the back of Collins’ neck and though feather-light, it resonates through his entire body like a bell rung in his nerves. 

Emboldened, he says, “I would like to pleasure you, Mr. Goodsir. With my mouth. Until you cry out.”

“Goodness.” His voice trembles but that nail traces its bright path once again down Collins’ neck. “That would be... oh, goodness. Yes.”

They make a hasty pallet from their coats and a sleeping bag and drop onto it, wrapped in one another’s arms and kissing as though kisses were breath. Collins wraps his muscular thighs around Goodsir and pulls him against him, then rolls over so the smaller man is pinned beneath him. Goodsir cannot recall ever having felt so curiously euphoric and safe; though pinned down he’s able to lift his open mouth to Collins’ neck and collar and nip, lick—he tastes sweat, soap; swears he can still smell a trace of dark chocolate on his breath. But he falls still as he feels Collins grappling with his waistband—he’s suddenly very anxious about his cock, if it will be adequate—he’s never had anyone evaluate it before. He wants to push Collins away but his anxiety is blunted by pleasure as Collins’ rough hand gently draws his cock out and tentatively palms its eager length. 

“Lovely,” he breathes, and Goodsir thrusts helplessly as a glistening bead wells at the head. This Collins spreads over the tip with his thumb, watching Goodsir’s face—his eyes are softly shut, his eyebrows raised, and from his slightly parted lips drifts this soft, repeated whimper. He’s never heard anything like it. His own cock is fully hard now, straining against the cloth of his trousers, and it takes profound willpower not to free it. If there is time, there is time. If not, that’s fine too—for Harry’s is a fine prick, trim and rose-red and arrow-straight, and he can scarcely wait to taste it. He winces slightly as he shifts to lie perpendicular to Goodsir, for the change in position tugs the front seam of his pants tight against him, and he must adjust himself.

Seeing this, Goodsir comes up on his elbows. “Take it out,” he says gently. “If you’d like, I mean.”

“It _is_ a bit uncomfortable, to be frank.” He straightens onto his knees and works his trousers down, revealing not only a splendidly girthy cock but also a peep between an unbuttoned shirt front of a hairy, full belly and strong, beautiful thighs. 

“Damn this cold,” Goodsir murmurs. “I should like to see all of you.”

Collins grins, grabs the hem of his shirt and sweater, and lifts it for one tantalizing moment: a powerful trunk, scattered with dark curls. Goodsir wants to clutch, taste, hold—but before he can move, the damned sweater and shirt are down again and Collins is kneeling over him, lowering his lips to Goodsir’s slender form. He kisses his hipbone, then dares a light nip there in the tender valley where the iliac crest rolls down to the plane of the pelvic bone. For this he is rewarded with a low whine and a lovely little squirm, his supple body bucking as his hand returns to its welcome place in Collins’ hair. With his tongue he draws a path to the base of Goodsir’s prick, which seems alive in his still hand. 

“Steady now,” Collins murmurs—and then his mouth is climbing Goodsir’s length, his dextrous tongue laving its way to the tip, and then with a neat tilt of his head his warm lips are gliding down the shaft. 

“Oh,” Goodsir moans, “oh—goodness, Henry...” and his hands clutch at his hair again. Collins presses the palm of his hand across Goodsir’s stomach to steady him, for he’s squirming beneath him, bouncing his hips against his mouth as he moans.

“All right?” Collins asks, lifting his mouth. The sight of this man that he’s wanted so badly gazing up at him from between his thighs, his eyes kind and dark with lust and his mouth hovering at the ready at the head of his cock is almost too much for Goodsir. He closes his eyes and nods. 

“It’s so much,” he stammers. “But please don’t stop. Except—if, when I should—how shall I warn you?”

“No need,” Collins says. “Just—enjoy. And know that I have longed for this for a very long time.”

With that, his mouth is back on Goodsir’s prick, less cautious now—he glides his mouth up and down, his lips taut around his shaft, which is slicked copiously with drool; his tongue presses and curls against his under-ridge and works delicately at the exposed head. He knows he’s making the funniest sounds, little _oh_ s and mewls and moans, but he can’t not, for it feels glorious: a diffuse ecstasy spreads through him, a soft and sublime sweetness, but Collins’ ministrations are haphazard enough that it doesn’t build—he’s just held trembling there, his whole being concentrated down to ecstatic sensation and at the mercy of the handsome, shaggy head moving between his thighs. Every now and then Collins flicks his gaze up to him and that always nearly finishes him; his eyes are bright with mischief and his heavy brow arched, and the possibility that he is enjoying this in his way just as much, that he has wanted this—wanted _him_ —

“There,” he hears himself say as Collins drives himself down further than he had been, and he feels his throat contract delicately around his head, “there, yes—oh—“ so Collins does it again, this time flattening his tongue firmly against the underside of his shaft, cupping the ridge. And again, this time bringing his lips to the very root. Distantly, abstractly, Goodsir tries to work out the physiological mechanisms of this trick, for his gag reflex ought to have—but, _oh, Christ,_ it’s like he’s sucking him with his throat; he glances down and, _Jesus_ , he’s looking at him with this intent, affectionate look, his eyes watering—

—and Collins, holding his lover’s gaze, moves all the way up again, his mouth open to display to Goodsir his own prick between Collins’ lips, resting against his tongue, saliva gleaming around his mouth. Then he closes his eyes and slides all the way down again, working the base with his lips as his throat closes around his head. He wills himself not to gag, for he knows that Goodsir, as conscientious as he is, would recoil, ask him to stop, would probably feel terrible—so this time, he is careful to soften his palate, sighing as he does so. This sigh, though incidental, elicits a stout thrust from Goodsir, who is, Collins is gratified to see, more sinew than skinniness, and his delicate hands tighten in his hair—just enough that it hurts. “Ah,” he says, all those little jumbled, desperate, lovely sounds—the moans and huffing and, Collins’ favorite, that faint, quavering, repeated _oh_ , take shape into words, barely: “God, Henry, lord, I’m—“ and he lifts his hips, holds and Collins holds on too, his hands cupped along his lover’s hips as he spends into the slick, snug cave of Collins’ throat. 

Goodsir’s climax echoes, though diluted, through Collins’ own body; his balls tighten and his aching cock twitches against the cool and empty air; his name on Goodsir’s lips feels almost like a bodily caress. Almost. Goodsir’s body goes limp as he quiets and Collins lowers him back down, then crawls up next to him so they can look at one another. 

“All right?” Collins asks.

“More than,” Goodsir murmurs softly. “That was...”

“You’ve not the words?”

“For the second time tonight.” He leans over to kiss Collins and is surprised by the taste of his tongue, acridly briney; he’s more surprised to find that he likes it. That’s him he tastes on this man; that’s him he smells nestling his nose into his muttonchops. Then he starts: “what about you?” he cries.

“Not necessary. Unless you’d like to. But I am more than gratified to have pleased you.”

“No, it won’t do. May I try?”

“Please.” 

“Take both hands,” he mutters, more to himself than to Collins as he reaches down between their legs. “Magnificent.” 

Collins hisses as Goodsir’s warm, soft hands grasp him. 

“How shall I go about it?”

“Same as you do yourself, feel your way about it.” He cranes his neck to watch Harry’s hands fumble with his cock, one hand spread at the base and the other stroking, light and quick. He normally handles himself rather roughly, scrabbling to get it over with; Goodsir’s lightness of touch is unaccustomed and teasing. “It shan’t take much, anyway—ah, that’s the way. A little harder—god, it was beautiful, you are beautiful—I’ve never so enjoyed—yes, there it is—good Christ—give us another kiss.” He gasps into Goodsir’s open mouth and his whole body curls inward, pressing hard against Goodsir as he spends. A sticky warmth spreads between their bellies. They go on kissing until of their own accord their bodies still, heavy with exhaustion. 

“We’ll be missed,” Goodsir says flatly after a time.

“I don’t want to go,” Collins says.

“You will come back? I’ve still not told you about my rocks, after all.” 

Collins smiles. “I look forward to it,” he says, pulling on his coat. “As soon as I’m able.”

Goodsir listens to the heavy crunch of Collins’ boots receding as he crosses the shale to The Erebus. He will follow soon, drop into his bunk, and dream well.


End file.
